Sarah Bond revealed that Xbox is working on a next-generation Xbox console to deliver "the largest technical leap" in the upcoming hardware generation.
Rumors of Xbox not wanting to continue their hardware are now confirmed to be false.
I feel like we hear this every single time though. "Largest tech leap in a hardware generation" very much means "we'll bump the graphics a little, we're still targeting 30fps though"
I'd argue this generation actually did deliver performance-wise, most games release with a performance mode that targets 60fps whereas the PS3/PS4 generation felt mostly stuck to 30FPS.
Honestly, that's fair. Maybe I was being a little too harsh, plus this gen did come with more customizable settings (IE, setting to "performance mode" or "fidelity" mode)
30/60fps is always a developer choice. Not related to hardware capability.
That being said, every generation console makers will make the most powerful hardware they can for the price point they are gonna charge. It's not exactly like Microsoft have any secret sauce here. It's the same amd/nvidia hardware choices for the price point they think they can sell at that anyone can make a machine with.
I don't know why you were being downvoted. It's true. FPS is the developers decision. If a game had like 9 pixels on screen, they could make that game do ultra high framerate.
Developers usually prefer better graphics over framerate however. I just hope that more games allow the choice between graphics, framerate, and a balance between the two... like with Hogwarts Legacy.
At this point, a preowned Steam Deck is so much cheaper than any next gen console might ever be. So the barrier to entry for PC gaming is even lower and from a customer perspective, we know what platform players should go for
Except you definitely make up for it and probably pay more (depending on what hardware cost your comparing to of course) on the consoles. All three consoles have subscription-based services that are more or less required. Some of the controllers for the consoles are as much or more than a keyboard or mouse. You rarely see a price decline of any of the games (especially Nintendo), and certainly nothing as near as what you'll find on PC.
So consoles are a cheap upfront cost that's recouped overtime. I'm not saying that consoles are definitely more expensive, but the true cost of ownership is somewhat muddled.
I play on both! I like pc for cheaper prices and some different games. I like my xbox to just "plug and play", it is simple and I don't have to keep verifying if it will run smoothly.
My pc is kinda strong, but not super strong, so AAA titles a no go there
After the Helldivers 2 release Sony started talking about getting more aggressive with PC releases, so I think we're going to see a lot less console only releases.
Game pass is too good for me to resist consoles tbh, the PC app is ass. I can't be bothered at this point to buy an expensive PC to be able to play AAA games.
Even in the very game, CP2077, as impressive as it can be, it can also be just as disappointing. It's still a nice technical marvel, but it's not at all the gamechanger it wanted to be.
And there's games such as A Plague Tale Requiem where the baked lighting looks flat-out better in most scenes than the raytracing, since unlike the "realistic" raytracing they hand-crafted it to be unrealistic but fitting for the tone and atmosphere of the scene. So I turned it off again.
I'll be honest, so far the only game where RT universally made me go "I'll leave that on, that's awesome!" is Riftbreaker. And it has a comparatively minor effect there, but at least a purely positive one (CP2077 I prefer at native rez over RT + DLSS which gets a weird pseudo-blur even with carefully tweaked resharpening, it's just part of how it renders I think as other games don't have this issue).
That sounds a lot like the jump from HD to 4K. Which is to say a lot less impactful than the previous jumps and tech. And something a lot of people might not even notice.
Are there other benefits to this? Like less work for developers?
It's such a tragedy that Xbox controllers are the only major controller not to have any gyro. We could've had cross-platform shooters that allow for gyro ironsight aiming, or even allow it on PC (it's currently a common option on Steam Deck, with some tinkering)
Allow me to recommend the Flydigi Vader 3 Pro. It has Hall-effect sticks, gyro, back buttons, six face buttons, Xbox style trigger rumble and every button is mechanical. It also works on the Switch and Android
The current limitation I’m finding with third party controllers is that I can’t bind the back paddles to what I want in Steam. I can only bind them to buttons that are available on the controller through their software.
I like to use the back paddles as modifier’s like Ctrl or Alt or to apply an action layer to temporarily modify my other buttons.